China Orders Three BBJ Max Aircrafts

Boeing Business Jets has recently sold three of their new Boeing Business Jet Max models in Greater China. The BBJ program was introduced twenty years ago and currently has 21 BBJs in service in the Great China region. At a press conference at the Asian Business Aviation Conference and Exhibition (ABACE), the company president of Boeing Business Jets, David Longridge, suggested that this order for three BBJ Max models is just the start.

“Over the past 20 years it’s fair to say that China has grown immensely in its significance to our marketplace here at BBJ,” Longridge said. China currently represents one-third of all of the orders for every BBJ Max ever sold.

“Our focus on the Chinese market has paid dividends,”

Longridge said to reporters. “We’re just going to keep our steady approach. We’d be very happy indeed if we could sell two or three aircraft a year into the Chinese BBJ market.”

The BBJ Max is the most recent variant of the legacy 737 family line and is equipped with Boeing’s advanced technology winglets as well as CFM International’s Leap-1B turbofans. These features, in conjunction with various other weight-saving and aerodynamic measures, help to increase the BBJ Max’s efficiency by up to 10 to 15 percent.

As Boeing celebrates its 100th anniversary this year, Longridge reminded the audience at ABACE that Boeing’s involvement with China dates all the way back to the very beginning. Wong Tsu, a Chinese national, was the first engineer hired by William Boeing as Tsu helped to design the company’s first commercially successful aircraft, the Model C. In addition to this, the Boeing Company sold their first airliner in private service, a Model 247, in 1935 to a Chinese customer.

“Eighty-one years ago we delivered the first airliner in corporate service to China, and we look forward to another 100 years of delivering BBJs and corporate airliners into the Chinese market,” said Longridge.

“We work closely with our customers in China to figure out how best to support them, whether that be delivering a green [uncompleted] airplane, managing the interior completion process or delivering a completed turnkey product.”